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“No, certainly not!.” the Grammarian said with a pretentious sniff.
“In that case,” replied the boatman, “all of your life is lost, for we
are sinking.”
Not a good pupil
One day Mulla Nasrudin found a tortoise. He tied it to his belt
and continued his work in the fields. The tortoise started to struggle.
The Mulla held it up and asked:
“What’s the matter, don’t you want to learn how to plough?”
Hidden Depths
One day the Mulla was in the market and saw small birds for sale
at five hundred reals each. “My turkey,” he thought, “which is larger
than any of these, is worth far more.”
The next day he took his pet turkey to market. Nobody would
offer him more than 50 reals for it. The Mulla began to shout:
“O people! This is a disgrace! Yesterday you were selling birds
only half this size at ten times the price.”
Someone interrupted him “Nasrudin, those were parrots -talking
birds. They are worth more because they can talk.”
“Fool!or over the wall than a brother over the s” said Nasrudin;
“those birds you value only because they can talk. You reject this
turkey, which has wonderful thoughts, and yet does not annoy people
with chatter.”
The Secret
A would-be-disciple haunted Nasrudin, asking him question after
question. The Mulla answered everything, and realized that the man
was not completely satisfied: although he was in fact making progress.
Eventually the man said: “Master, I need more explicit guidance.”
“What is the matter?”
“I have to keep on doing things,; and although I progress, I want
The Forgotten Question
One day as Bohlul was hastily riding from one place to another,
he was stopped by a peasant who wished to ask him to answer a
question that had been long in bothering him. Bohlul didn’t wish to
be interrupted in his journey.
“But it is a matter of life and death.” protested the peasant.
“All right then,” Bohlul snapped, “But be quick about it then, for
my horse is restless to continue on the journey.”
The poor peasant, disquieted by the pressing need for speed, stut-
tered and sweated.
“Well, what is it?” Bohlul demanded.
The peasant forgot the question.
Moment in Time
“What is Fate?” Nasrudin was asked by a scholar.
“An endless succession of intertwined events, each influencing
the other.”
“That is hardly a satisfactory answer. I believe in cause and effect.”
“Very well,” said the Mulla, “look at that.” He pointed to a proces-
sion passing in the street.
“That man is being taken to be hanged. Is that because someone
gave him a silver piece and enabled him to buy the knife with which
he committed the murder; or because someone saw him do it; or
because nobody stopped him?”
All I needed was Time
The Mulla bought a donkey. Someone told him that he would
have to give it a certain amount of food every day. He considered this
to be too much food. He would experiment, he decided, to get the
donkey used to less food. Every day, therefore, he reduced its rations.
Eventually, when the donkey was reduced to almost no food at all, it
fell over and died.
“Pity,” said the Mulla. “If I had had a little more time before it
died I could have got it accustomed to living on nothing at all.”
The Short Cut
Walking home one wonderful morning, Nasrudin thought that it
would be a good idea to take a short cut through the woods. “Why,”
he asked himself, “should I plod along a dusty road when I could be
communing with Nature, listening to the birds and looking at the
flowers? This is indeed a day of days; a day for fortunate pursuits!”
So saying, he launched himself into the greenery. He had not
gone very far, however, when he fell into a pit, where he lay reflect-
ing.
“It is not such a fortunate day, after all,” he meditated; “in fact it is
just as well that I took this short cut. IF things like this can happen
in a beautiful setting like this, what might not have befallen me on
that nasty highway?”
To Deal with the Enemy
Mulla’s mother once instructed her son, “If you ever see a ghost,
or an apparition in the graveyard, don’t be afraid. Be brave and
attack it immediately! They will run away from you.”
Mulla replied, “But what if their mothers gave them the same
advice?”
There is more Light here
Someone saw Nasrudin searching for something on the sidewalk.
“What have you lost, Mulla?” he asked. “My key,” said the Mulla.
So they both went down on their knees and looked for it.
After a time the other man asked: “Where exactly did you drop
it?”
“In my house.”
“Then why are you looking here?”
“There is more light out here than inside my own house.”
The Blind Man and the Lamp
One night, a blind man was carrying a large vase over his shoul-
der with one arm and holding out a torch with the other hand. A
passerby noticed this and cried out, “Ignorance! Day and night are
but the same to you, so why do you carry a torch before you?” The
blind old man replied, “The light is for blind people like you, to
keep you from accidentally bumping into me and breaking my vase.”
Salt is not Wool
One day the Mulla was taking a donkey-load of salt to market, and
drove the ass through a stream. The salt was dissolved. The Mulla
was angry at the loss of the load. The ass was frisky with relief.
Next time he passed that way he had a load of wool. After the
animal had passed through the stream, the wool was thoroughly
soaked, and very heavy. The donkey staggered under the soggy load.
“Ha!” shouted the Mulla, “you thought you would get off lightly
every time you went through the water, didn’t you?”
The Trip
Nasrudin’s friend Wali slipped and fell from the immense height
of the Post Office Tower in London. The eyewitnesses, who had
seen him plummet past their open windows, were questioned by
Nasruddin. They all agreed that Wali’s last words at each floor on
the way down were: “So far, so good.”
Something fell
Nasrudin’s wife ran to his room when she heard a tremendous
thump.
“Nothing to worry about,” said the Mulla, “it was only my cloak
which fell to the ground.”
“What, and made a noise like that?”
“Yes, I was inside it at the time.”
The Tax Man
A man had fallen into some quicksand when Nasrudin came along
one afternoon. People were crowding around, all trying to get him
out before he drowned.
They were shouting, “Give me your hand!” But the man would
not reach up.
The Mulla elbowed his way through the crowd and leant over to
the man. “Friend,” he said, “what is your profession?”
“I am an income-tax inspector,” gasped the man.
“In that case,” said Nasrudin, “take my hand!” The man immedi-
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